Thursday, October 4, 2007

One of "Steve's Angels" -- Heather Wilson -- For U.S. Senate

"Steve's angels" include: Sarah Heath Palin (Gov. of Alaska), Melissa Hart (candidate for PA 4th Congressional District), Heather A. Wilson (candidate for U.S. Senate in New Mexico), and Diana Lynn Irey (Washington (PA) County Commissioner).

I'm also paying careful attention to the campaigns of Bobby Jindal (for Gov. of La.) and William Russell (candidate for 12th Congressional District in PA).

It's not really a big surprise, but Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., will run for the seat now occupied by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who is formally announcing today in Albuquerque that he will not seek re-election.

The Hill.com's Jackie Kucinich and Aaron Blake are reporting that "a source close to Wilson's decision" has confirmed that the five-term congresswoman from New Mexico's 1st Congressional District will run for the U.S. Senate in 2008.

Here's the whole article:
Leading The News

Wilson to seek Domenici's seat
By Jackie Kucinich and Aaron Blake
October 04, 2007

Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M) will run for the New Mexico Senate seat that is expected to open up officially later Thursday when Sen. Pete Domenici (R) declares that he will not seek reelection in 2008, according to a source familiar with Wilson’s decision.
Domenici has taken Wilson under his wing in recent years, and as he has gotten older, Wilson’s name has topped the list of potential heirs.

A strong campaigner, she has survived several multimillion-dollar challenges in a swing district that voted for Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004. She defeated former state Attorney General Patricia Madrid (D) by fewer than 1,000 votes in 2006.

But she also faces the same U.S. Attorney scandal baggage that would have affected Domenici’s reelection campaign. Fired U.S. attorney David Iglesias said both lawmakers pressured him to be more aggressive with his corruption cases during the 2006 campaign.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Wilson has gotten faced so many tough challenges such as a left-district, extremly competive challengers (a state AG going for congress is a step down) and the smearing of her with the so called attorney "scandal". Wilson for Senate!

Stephen R. Maloney said...

Christopher, Heather is one of the true stars of the GOP and a person who could someday become President of the U.S. That's precisely why the Dems hate her -- and "hate" is not too strong a word. When she called David Iglesias about the corruption investigation of Democrats in NM, she did NOTHING WRONG. There's an old line that says, "Where there's smoke there's fire." Sometimes, however, "where there's smoke, there's a smoke machine." In this case, there's the usual Democratic smoke machine, where honorable Republicans get smeared and dishonorable Democrats (Howard Jefferson, Alan Mollohan, and John Murtha, among them) go on with business as usual. I hope Heather will make these exact points. She's wonderful.

steve maloney

SJ Reidhead said...

I think Wilson is a very good choice. Did you catch what I wrote the other day at The Pink Flamingo? I think she stands a better chance of taking a state wide race than her increasingly Dem district.

SJ Reidhead
The Pink Flamingo

Stephen R. Maloney said...

Dear S.J.: I missed your comments on Heather, but will look at them soon. The Iraq War is going much better and with a strong candidate at the head of the ticket we may just not have the bloodbath for Republicans that we saw in 2006. I agree with what you say about Heather's district being an extremely tough one to win. Heather is also good at raising money and that will help.

steve